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19th Century American Whaling

Bonin Islands

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SKETCHES

IN THE

BONIN ISLANDS.

CHAPTER XLI.

SKETCHES IN THE BON1N ISLANDS.

      At five o'clock, P. M., on the 23d of June, the Peacock got under way, in company with the Enterprise, and both vessels stood seaward, among the Ladrones, a group of small islands in the vicinity of this part of the coast of China. The name is derived from the Portuguese, and given by them from being a lurking place, from the remotest period to the present time, for hordes of Chinese pirates. In 1809-10, the pirates navigated 1800 vessels, large and small, manned by 70,000 individuals;^* a numerical force greater than that of the British navy at the present day.

      For the first few days the weather was a succession of squalls, rain, calms, and hot sunshine, and the wind prevailed from the northward and eastward. We came in sight of the island of Formosa, and had determined to pass through the Formosa passage, and enter the Pacific Ocean by doubling the north end of the island; but, fortunately, the wind proved more favorable, and we were enabled to follow the Bashee passage, between the south end of Formosa and a group of small islands called the Bashee.

      Formosa is mountainous, and sustains a numerous population, estimated at between two and three millions. In 1683, after the conquest of China by the Tartars, it fell into the hands of the Chinese: previous to that time, however, the Dutch had established themselves, and were expelled (1624) by the Chinese conquerors. The western side of the island, alone, is under the Chinese yoke, and seems not to be held quietly; for, constant struggles are made by the aborigines from the eastern side of the mountain chain which divides the island,

to free themselves. The island is considered as a department of the province of Fuh-keen; it supplies China with sugar, rice, and camphor, in large quantities.

      Formosa is admirably situated for trade. It is within ninety miles of China, and four hundred and fifty of Japan, and still less of the Philippines. Should any European power desire an insular position, with a view to commerce with China and Japan, a more desirable one cannot easily be found.

      We scarcely entered the Pacific Ocean before we found a general improvement in the sick, though the weather was not uniform, or remarkably pleasant. On the evening of the 14th of July, we made the Bonin Islands; and the next day, at half past two o'clock, P.M., piloted by Mr. Savary, who came off to us in a canoe, we anchored in Port St. William, as it is to be in future called, though formerly known as Port Lloyd, or Port St. George.

      The Enterprise, Captain G. N. Hollins, had anchored about three hours before us.

1. "Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own,
2. In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone,
3. Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers,
4. And banquets on through a whole year of flowers;
5.       Where the sun loves to pause
6.             With so fond a delay,
7.       That the night only draws
8.             A thin veil o'er the day;
9. Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live,
10. Is worth the best joy that life elsewhere can give.
11.  
12. "There, with souls ever ardent and pure as the clime,
13. We should love, as they loved in the first golden time;
14. The glow of the sunshine, the balm of the air,
15. Would steal to our hearts and make all summer there!
16.       With affection, as free
17.             From decline as the bowers,
18.       And with Hope, like the bee
19.             Living always on flowers,
20. Our life should resemble a long day of light,
21. And our death come on, holy and calm as the night!"

      Thus sang and sighed a half dozen hardy sons of the ocean, about the year 1829. They had tried their fortunes in every clime; they had attempted continents and isles; but Dame Fortune always frowned upon their efforts. They were at the Sandwich Islands, tired of the

world, when they heard the Bonin Isles were a paradise, not only of the mighty Pacific, but of the whole world. Its waters were represented, truly, to abound in fish and turtle, and its wilds in game, its shores with safe harbors, its mountainous surface in beautiful valleys, and its soil was capable of producing every thing without cultivation or toil. The Bonin Islands offered them, then, a place where they might retreat from all the cares and vexations of the world, and for the future be free from all anxiety. They flattered themselves, that the soil would produce so abundantly, that they would be soon enabled to supply vessels employed in whale fishing, with fresh fruits and vegetables, which in a short time would result in competency and even fortune to themselves, when they might return again to the society of the world.

      In this mind, Mathew Mazarra, a Genoese, Alden B. Chapin, Nathaniel Savary of Massachusetts, Richard Millechamp of England, and Charles Johnson of Denmark, set sail from the Sandwich Islands, accompanied by several of the natives, male and female, who served them as servants and wives. In June, 1830, they arrived at the haven of their hopes, and before reaching the land, they found they had been misled, but it was too late to retreat. They landed and began the settlement of that island of the group, called by Captain Beechey, Peel's Island.

      "These islands, which are about twenty-nine degrees east of Canton and eight south from Jeddo, are most conveniently situated for watching the trade of China on the west, the Philippines on the south, and Russia on the north; and if any intercourse is soon to be opened with the Japanese, they form the position from which it could be most easily effected. The earliest account which we find of the Bonin Islands, is contained in Koempher's History of Japan. 'About the year 1675,' says the historian, 'the Japanese accidentally discovered a very large island, one of their barks having been forced there in a storm from the island of Fatsisio, from which they computed it to be three hundred miles distant towards the east. They met with no inhabitants, but found it to be a very pleasant and fruitful country, well supplied with fresh water, and furnished with plenty of plants and trees, particularly the arrack tree, which, however, might give room to conjecture, that the island lay rather to the south of Japan than to the east, these trees growing only in hot countries. And because they found no inhabitants upon it, they called it Bunin Sima, or the Island Bunin, (in Chinese woojin – without people,) the uninhabited island. On the shores they found

an immense number of fish and crabs, some of which were from four to six feet long;'"^* probably turtle.

      In September, 1825, the port was visited by an English ship, named the Supply, and in 1826, the William, a whale ship belonging to London, was lost here, owing to neglect. In June, 1827, the port was visited by Captain Beechey in H. B. M. Ship Blossom.

      When he arrived off the harbor, they met two individuals in a boat, who proved to be a part of the crew of the unfortunate William. "This ship, which had once belonged to His Majesty's service, had been anchored in the harbor in deep water, in rather an exposed situation, the port then not being well known, and had part of her cargo upon deck, when a violent gust of wind from the land drove her from her anchors, and she struck upon a rock in a small bay close to the entrance, where in a short time she went to pieces. All the crew escaped, and established themselves on shore as well as they could, and immediately commenced building a vessel from the wreck of the ship, in which they intended to proceed to Manila; but before she was completed, another whaler, the Timor, touched there and carried them all away, except our two visiters, who remained behind at their own request. They had been several months upon the island, during which time, they had not shaved, or paid any attention to their dress, and were very odd-looking beings. The master, Thomas Younger, had unfortunately been killed by the fall of a tree, fifteen days previous to the loss of the ship, and was buried in a sandy bay on the eastern side of the harbor."^†

      The Blossom remained from the 8th till the 15th of June. Captain Beechey took formal possession of the island in the name of His Britannic Majesty, and nailed to a tree a sheet of copper, with the necessary particulars engraved thereon. He named the harbor, in compliment to the Bishop of Oxford, Port Lloyd, and the island in which it is situated Peel's Island.

      In August, 1834, the American barque Volunteer touched at the Bonin Islands to procure supplies. Having been informed, at the Sandwich Islands, that the settlers had gone to the south island, she made for that first, and, after a fruitless search for them of three days, found them on the south of the north island; and on the 24th, under the pilotage of Mr. Mazarra, the ship was worked into the harbor, now named by the settlers Port St. George. The latitude is

27° 6' 30" north, and the longitude 142° 16' east.^* Their position, on the most modern chart, is very much to the westward.

      We found the entrance of the harbor, the approach to which is very pretty, to be on the south-western side of the island. The rocks are, in many places, castellated, and some of them, on close examination, present the appearance of rude masonry, wherein the stones had been piled up loosely together, and a mortar, or cement, afterwards poured in amongst them. Within a few miles of the coast are seen, here and there, a fragment of rock standing above the sea, like a sentry-box, or watch-tower.

      The general outline of the bay is oval, being about a mile and a half long, and three-quarters of a mile wide, having the entrance towards the southern end, which, between the promontory, on the south side, and the quoin-shaped rock, mentioned by Beechey, we estimated to be half a mile wide. The breadth of the channel, however, does not exceed a quarter of a mile. The land round the bay is broken into numerous angular hills by ravines, rather than valleys, beautifully green with close-growing trees and shrubs, which flourish to the water's edge. The average height of the hills is, perhaps, four hundred feet; and the highest point does not, probably, exceed six hundred. The shore of the harbor is broken into several small bays, or coves, bounded by white sand beaches, which, contrasting with the blue sheet of water, and, here and there, the white spray dashing over a dark rock, imparts a picturesqueness to the whole scene.

      However bright the picture to a sea-weary voyager, or however fit for the pencil, Mazarra and his followers saw nothing in the deep ravines, and fan-leaf palm, and cabbage-tree, to invite them to establish their home upon this uninhabited island. But it was too late to turn back. Though disappointed to find there were no plains of any extent, and the small basins of level land among the hills were covered by a close jungle, they set to work, and now show, with no little satisfaction, the result of their tedious and painful toil. The same industrious perseverance in the 'far west' would have made them comparatively rich men; but here their snugly thatched cabins are valueless, in the event of their leaving the island, which is not improbable, and then their six years' labor is thrown away. Nor have they been free from those difficulties from which they fled. They found here, as every where else, that man is doomed to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Until their first harvest, their

food consisted almost entirely of turtle and the pith of the cabbage-tree, which no one eats except from necessity. Instead of a mild and benignant clime, every year has brought typhoons and earthquakes, and the numerous uptorn trees bear testimony of the violence of these storms. Indeed they have never been able to obtain bananas, for the reason that, about the period of their maturity, the plant is destroyed, or torn away by a typhoon. Neither the phases of the weather nor the prevalence of the wind have been regular in their succession any two years.

      Besides these difficulties, dissensions crept into their little community, and still exist. They have been several times annoyed by refractory seamen, turned on shore by the masters of whale-ships, where, being without a fear of punishment, they have committed outrage and violence to an extent seriously detrimental to the prosperity of the settlement. In 1833, the whaler Cadmus left fifteen men on shore, among whom were some of daring character, who put the settlers at defiance: eight of them perished in an attempt to leave the island in a whale-boat, and the rest have been since taken away.

      Within a few days, a written code has been agreed to by all the settlers, now fourteen in number, the principal features of which are, that all disputes shall be decided by the opinion of the majority; that, henceforward, no individual shall instruct or assist any vessel in taking turtle, nor shall any one, in future, sell turtle, or feed his hogs upon it; no one shall maltreat the slaves or servants of another, or endeavor to seduce any woman from her lord; nor shall any one encourage men to desert from ships arriving at the island; but, on the contrary, use every effort to apprehend and return every deserter to his vessel. This code is signed and sworn to by all; and it is remarkable, that only three of the fourteen are capable of writing their names: Mazarra, the most respected among them, is not one of the latter number.

      The morality of the community is, I fear, of a low grade, and religion is out of the question. Most of the white men have one or two wives, natives of the Sandwich Islands. In all, there are nineteen women on the island, among whom infanticide and infidelity, which they are at no pains to conceal from their husbands, are common: and this in a population not exceeding forty souls!

      On the evening of our arrival, I accompanied several officers in pursuit of turtle. We landed on one of the sand beaches in the bay, under the dark shade of the high land. We had scarcely sprung on shore, before a turtle weighing between two and three hundred pounds

was found, and turned upon his back. Encouraged by this success we searched the whole beach very carefully, but without finding any thing. We now divided the party, and took our stations along the sand to await until the animals should come up from the deep, as they are wont to do at night to deposite their eggs. The sky was bright with stars, and there was a dead silence, only interrupted by the sullen splash of the sea: we lay shrouded in the shade of the rocks beneath wide spreading trees; and the whole scene disposed the mind to wander from present objects. I gazed upon the heavens, and wondered that man could become so lost to his own interest, and in affection for friends at home, as to prefer an exile "The world forgetting, and by the world forgot," on an isle like this,

to pursuing an honest life beneath his native skies.

      The revery was broken by a canoe gliding gently upon the sand, and two athletic forms leaped silently upon the shore, and drew their frail bark after them. They advanced towards us without speaking, and we could discern through the deep shadow of the hills, that they were seamen in coarse shirts and trousers. They proved to be Americans who had been nearly a year on the island; and were now on the same errand with ourselves. They told us they were out every night, and the beach we were upon, was a very good one for our purpose. They led us into the edge of the bush where the turtles go to lay their eggs, and after a little while, we found one as large as our first prize.

      A fellow feeling and sociability had suddenly grown up between the newcomers and our boat's crew. The two quondam whalers at once aided them in dragging the turtle to the boat, and assumed a generous contempt for an animal, over which an alderman's eyes would have sparkled, when some one gave a hint about "the poor fellows having a share." "Why, we have it every day," said they, as they launched their little canoe, and with one or two strokes of the paddle urged it out of sight, though not out of ear shot; for the stroke of their paddles and the sound of their voices were heard some time afterwards.

      After watching another hour we returned on board, and found another party had been more successful, having taken five.

      From February till August, great numbers of turtle visit the sandy beaches, where they deposite their eggs in the sand beyond the reach of the tide. In a few weeks the process of incubation is completed

by the heat of the sun alone; and the young turtles, numbering from one to five hundred in each nest, betake themselves to the water. The half grown turtles may be taken on shingle and rocky shores, but never on sand beaches. After the season they disappear, and, from some of them having been taken with Japanese hooks in them, are supposed to visit the coast of Japau. Dampier, speaking on this subject in his voyages, expresses his opinion that the habits of turtles are migratory.

      While here, we caught about forty, any two of which furnished ample food for one hundred and eighty persons during a day. Notwithstanding the innumerable eggs deposited and hatched, the settlers think the number has in the past years diminished, and hence the regulation above mentioned in relation to them. They suppose the turtle does not attain its full size in less than five years. When they first escape from the egg, they are about the size of a dollar; and when full grown, from four to six feet long.

      The next day we pulled ashore, and landed near a mass of rock standing apart from the shore and connected to it by a flat of broken stones, over which we made our way to the beach. It is narrow, and forms a dividing line between Port William and a small bay, which opens more to the southward. Here Mr. Mazarra met us, and led us towards the little village, at the entrance of which are several broad leafed trees. Several Sandwich islanders, men and women, were lounging on some rough hewn logs, beneath their shade. We halted here for a moment, and Mr. Chapin and an Englishman came forward to welcome us. The latter was tremulous, and had a wild expression, which betrayed his fatal addiction to the abuse of intoxicating spirits. We learned afterwards, that three barrels of New England rum had been lately obtained; and, having been nearly a year without any thing of the kind on the island, it had met with rather a hearty reception. "Nothing will be done," said the 'old gentleman,' as Mazarra is respectfully styled, "until it be all gone, and that will be in a few days."

      We were now led through the village, consisting of half a dozen comfortable huts, each fenced in with vertical posts of cabbage tree, including a small garden in front. We were conducted to the dwelling of Mr. Chapin, and ushered into a square apartment that betrayed the professional taste of the tenant. On our left stood a table, covered with newspapers and writing materials, and over it, upon the wall, hung a spy-glass, and a thin manuscript, headed "Laws of the Bonin Isles." A sea chest stood on each side of the room, and a

bed with calico curtains, filled each corner. A few French prints, and a shelf of fifty or sixty miscellaneous volumes, occupied rather than adorned the walls. A chair of home manufacture, and a three-legged stool completed the furniture.

      A door between the beds communicated with two inner apartments, half the size of the first, in which were women engaged in affairs of the household. The roof was thatched with fan-palms, and the walls hung with coarse mats. Such is the general style of the huts of this new settlement, which is called Clarkston.

      Mr. Chapin, barefoot and in shirt and trousers, his face shaded by a broad hat of sinnate, invited us to be seated; and as he conversed, with folded arms, walked the floor as if he had been upon a quarter deck. He was polite and intelligent. He showed us his corn field, and a saline spring close at hand, and assisted us in picking up some small shells from a fresh water stream. Melons, yams, sweet potatoes and taro were abundant, and the Indian corn was flourishing.

      Among the vegetable productions of Bonin, are several varieties of wood well suited to cabinet work; but difficult to get at, from the almost impenetrable jungle in which they grow. It was said that camphor and spice trees abounded, but the settlers have not yet met with either.

      Hogs and goats are numerous, and many are running wild in 'the bush.' Domestic fowls, in spite of feeding and kind treatment have forsaken the village, and subsist wild in the jungle.

      When the settlers came to the island they found the house-fly in great numbers, and to their surprise, more numerous in the interior of the island than upon its coasts. Small lizards, crows, and a species of ptyropus, called flying fox, were very numerous. The latter were very troublesome to the products of the gardens. While here, we got two of the foxes on board; one alive, which in the course of two days became tame and fond of being caressed. It ate melon and sweet potato, and remained in the cabin suspending itself by its hind legs. One day it alighted on the stuffed skin of its mother, when it manifested much sensibility, and clung to it with seeming affection. This is the animal, erroneously mentioned in Beechey's Voyage, as a Vampire bat. It is of a blackish gray color, and has light chestnut colored irides; but in other respects does not differ from that seen in various parts of India.

      On a second visit to Clarkston, we found our acquaintances on the beach with a number of dogs, which they found of very great use in

their hunting of hogs and goats. They had instructed the dogs to catch fish, and two of them will plunge into the water and seize a shark, one on each side, by the fin, and bring it ashore in spite of resistance. One of these dogs had several scars, which he had received in contests with wild boars; and on one occasion was so severely wounded, that his master carried him home on his back, a distance of several miles.

      I embarked with a friend in a small canoe, paddled by two Sandwich Islanders, and, crossing the bay, ran through a natural tunnel, or rocky cave, open at both ends, which pierces the southern promontory of the small bay. The passage was perhaps thirty yards long, and there was just room for the canoe with its wide-spreading out-rigger to pass. The water within the cave was smooth and of considerable depth, but so transparent, that various sea-shells and different colored marine growths were seen among branching coral at the bottom. Emerging on the other side we were in the open Pacific. Next we entered a little bay, wherein a number of porpoises were sporting gaily in their native element; and the canoe was paddled to shore and drawn up on a pretty sand beach, which at this point was not more than ten feet wide, dividing the blue waters of the ocean from a stream, which, from its stagnation and greenish color, might be mistaken for a pool. A canoe loaded with melons and pumpkins, floated on its surface; and a Sandwich Islander, asleep in the shade of a rock hard by, declared it to lead to some habitation or cultivated ground. It is emphatically called the river. In a moment our light bark was carried over the sand and launched upon its peaceful bosom. We again embarked and pursued its windings for half a mile. It was perfectly calm and silent, and no animated thing except ourselves, was abroad. On one side, the rocky bank rose perpendicularly three or four hundred feet; on the other, it spread out into a level plain, a quarter of a mile in extent, covered with trees and wild brush wood. Presently we espied, on a point stretching into the stream, a little terrier, that stood with ears erect and one foot raised, regarding us with attention. We had no sooner doubled the point than we met Mr. Mazarra in a canoe. He had been to his plantation; but kindly turned about, and we paddled on together for a quarter of a mile, and landed.

      This plantation, where we saw corn, yams, sugar-cane, and taro (arum esculentum) growing luxuriantly, extends on either side of the stream to a considerable distance. The soil is rich, and the hills rise on all sides forming a long narrow valley. After examin-

ing the farm, we entered the dwelling of our host, which resembled the huts at Clarkston, and refreshed ourselves with a fine melon. I observed here a great number of spiders, and wondered they were permitted to infest the domicil, till Mazarra said, "We find them very useful in killing the flies about the house, and are glad to see them."

      We returned as we came, and not finding our boat at Clarkston, spent some time wandering ever the rocks, which the tide had now left, in search of shells.

      I have sometimes asked myself, whether our friends who have conchological propensities, ever think of the labor and peril often undergone to obtain the specimens which they desire for their cabinets. Many a severe illness have I known to result from expeditions of this sort, the individual being alternately drenched by the sea, and exposed to the blaze of a tropical sun; and, at the same time, perhaps, snuffing up the morbiferous effluvia from some neighboring marsh. Then, one's hands are often severely cut and scratched by efforts to detach the animals, from their place of abode.

      We found specimens of beautiful limpets, turbo, and the giant clam (tridacna gygas.) Those of the last genus, nine or ten inches long, were usually found between rocks, secured by the peduncle or foot below, and the zig-zag mouth gaping open an inch wide, the thin membranous portion of the animal, which is of a purple color, floating over the margin of the shell. When disturbed, the membrane was immediately drawn in, and the shell closed, at the same time spirting a fine thread of water, ejected as it might be from a syringe; sometimes air bubbles alone escaped. A half hour's hard labor was not unfrequently expended to obtain one.

      By surprising them, limpets may be easily detached; but if they ever take the alarm at your approach, their resistance often foils your wish to obtain a perfect shell. They are furnished with a thick fleshy belly, which, on occasion, applies its edges very closely to the rock, while the centre is raised so as to produce a vacuum; then, the weight of the superincumbent atmosphere is sufficient to press them with great firmness to the spot of location. Chitons offer the same kind of resistance. I have often watched these latter animals, and observed their movements. Locomotion in them, is effected by undulating the surrounding fleshy rim, which binds their several pieces together, and is much more rapid than one would suppose. I have seen them on a smooth rock, drive off every other sort of shell. Indeed, it would seem that all the marine animals of this character are

gregarious. Those of the same class are found in groups, waiting to receive the food, that the water may cast in their way, or deposite around them when it recedes.

      By some process, the smooth shells are covered with a slime, which enhances the brightness of the colors in the young individuals when recent, which is somewhat diminished after the animal is killed, and the shell cleaned. In the old shells, the slime attaches to itself panicles of sea-weed, sand; and sometimes small shells of different species, which give it a coating that in time becomes a part of the shell.

      These animals do not labor all for themselves. The small ones are destined to become food for the larger; and their habitations often become homes of a kind of crab, which manages to remove the owner and architect, and take possession himself. From this circumstance, sailors call them pirates. They usually select some univalve shell that has an inner chamber, in which they accommodate the soft part of their bodies, leaving their heads and claws outside, to seize upon their prey and drag their habitations after them. On this island, there are two species of land helix; but I could not find a single one alive. The pirates had taken possession of them all. On a distant part of the island I found, one day, hundreds of pirates, clothed in almost every species of univalve, feasting on the remains of a dead turtle. They appeared like people of every nation in their respective costumes, congregated at a fair. There was one thing in common; they were all rapacious, and all had red claws. My approach gave them alarm, and they hurried away in all directions to escape. Some little crabs had got into shells disproportionately large, and waddled off like a boy under a man's hat and coat; while others had lived so long in their shells as to outgrow them: these found their houses no impediment to rapid flight. The villains seemed to possess a sense of right and wrong, and fled, because they knew they had been guilty of murdering the innocent, to appropriate their homes. I could show them no quarter; though I presume, they only pursue the instincts of their nature.

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